Letterman extorted for $2 million for sex tales

I think it was inevitable he'd have to talk about it on the show. It's not like the grand jury testimony would have been kept secret, and the DA is holding a press conference tomorrow to reveal more details. It would have been even more awkward if he'd never talked about it on the show, since he's discussed other personal matters on the air, from the kidnapping case, to the woman who kept breaking into his home, to the heart surgery, to the Palin controversy. It was awkward, but I don't know if there was any other way. And he did say at the end that'd be the last he'd talk about it, although if guests bring it up it'll be hard to avoid.

And again, he didn't do anything criminal. He was, actually, the victim of a crime (allegedly).

Attracted to him physically? Yeah, probably not. And they might have been buckin' for a promotion. But I've worked with two ladies whose biggest dream in life was to sleep with Letterman. Partly because of the looks - this was back 10 years ago, when he still had a bit more hair - but also the personality got them going. I mean, if women only slept with guys they were physically attracted to, there would be a lot of lonely men out there.

This is like a Larry Sanders episode come to life. What would Artie have done?

 

How dumb is this guy? He could have gone to the National Enquirer or TMZ and gotten a lot of money, since it sounds like he did have evidence of the affairs. He wouldn't have gotten 2 million but he probably could have been able to pay off a mortgage and, oh yeah, avoid prison.

 

Mug shot.

[/obscure 30 Rock joke]

 

The public, joking admission is grounds for divorce I have to believe. And I really hope Dave's young son wasn't tuning in tonight.

 

Really? You seem to have a lot of the details, NOLU. Please share.

EDIT: FWIW (since I've never heard of Radaronline),

http://www.radaronline.com/category/tags/robert-halderman

 

I'm going to assume his wife knew he was going to talk about it on TV tonight. I doubt she tuned in with little Harry and, whoa, what's this about women and grand juries? The Daily News did call his mom for a quote, and she said Dave's wife had called her and told her about it.

Maybe she divorces him. But I highly doubt it's going to be because of his public admission. and again, who knows what the time period was on this, if they were married, if they were on again in their on again/off again relationship, when she knew, etc.

 

Well, if it was before the marriage and the kid...meh...no big deal.

Epic fail extortion plot though.

 

I don't think Regina divorces him. Chances are she knew about this way long ago... they were never clear on the show what the timeframe was.

That said, I'm pretty sure the NY media is going to have a field day with this over the next few days. This is one case where I'm glad Harry is only kindergarten age.

 

He talked about it to get his side out. It's inevitable it's the front page of the Post and News today. So take some of the sting out by introducing the topic on your own terms.

I'm not surprised that the audience thought it was a bit. The story didn't break until after the taping, so they would have no knowledge of it. Plus, when you attend a Letterman taping, they practically browbeat the audience to laugh loudly at anything. They have obnoxious pages who hammer that message as people are lned up in the lobby, so the audience is pretty well wired by the time they're seated.

I thought he handled it poorly. It would have been better to preface it with, "I have a serious matter to discuss..." which would have set the right tone. Instead he kept talking vaguely about "creepy behavior," which led the audience to think it was something light.

As far as women being attracted to him, are you kidding? Have you traveled with a team? I've seen hideous-looking, stupid players score with nice-looking women because they were famous. Iggy Pop has groupies, for heaven's sake. And, if you remember your Seinfeldology, George's fiance had a major crush on Letterman.

 

Just saw out here on the coast - if this stuff happened before he was married - if the extortion only started today - and everything was consensual - its not a big deal.

Figure we'll be seeing Gloria Allred on TV over the next few days though.

 

It was completely classless, in my opinion, for Letterman to spend about 10 minutes cracking jokes before telling the audience that he had sex with the co-workers. Did it need to take that long to work up enough balls to reveal what he did to cause the extortion attempt? It was manipulative and he did it just to drum up sympathy. The crowd can't be blamed for laughing at first when they didn't know if it was a true story or just a joke. But after he admitted having sex, they laughed and clapped for Letterman even more. Totally shallow.

 

No wonder he bungled the extortion plot. Halderman needed Ehrlichman to get that sort of chicanery done right.

Also: The gal who stalked Letterman for all those years is pissed off now to learn he was sleeping around, just not with her.